“Give me the streets of Manhattan,” Walt Whitman implored, and Eduardo Porter suggested avoiding rural America, maybe especially Appalachia. Well, I’ve tried both — Manhattan’s concrete for over 20 years — and the mountains of the Blue Ridge and the Smokies and the Cumberlands and the Alleghenies from Virginia, Tennessee, Kentucky and West Virginia for most of […]
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In the aftermath of the Tree of Life tragedy, where 11 Jewish worshippers were killed by a white supremacist terrorist, the world heard from elected officials, professional sports teams and even national celebrities that in Pittsburgh we, “Love Thy Neighbor, No Exceptions.” Many in Pittsburgh’s African-American community wondered what city […]
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In the past few weeks, America has experienced the deadliest anti-Semitic terrorist attack in its history, the largest political assassination attempt recorded when pipe bombs were mailed to prominent members of the Democratic Party, and the murder of African American grandparents by an avowed white supremacist at a Kroger. Two […]
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By some estimates, Tennessee is ranked last in the country for voter turnout. Ahead of the 2016 election, a study from the Pew Charitable Trusts showed that in the eight previous years, the state had some of the lowest rates in the country, hitting an all-time low in 2014 with […]
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On election night election analysts try to make sense of the results, put them in some sort of context, and describe whatever patterns and forces have produced electoral outcomes. Good luck following that script in 2018. Indeed, the 2018 election is not following any normal midterm script. Turnout expectations illustrate […]
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I am a Jewish woman living in the Point Breeze neighborhood of Pittsburgh. I am a wife, a mother, a writer. I am a member of Rodef Shalom Congregation. I am a member of Carlow University’s Madwomen in the Attic and a volunteer at two halfway houses for women. And […]
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